Some mental events are conscious, some are unconscious. What is the difference between the two? This book offers an answer. It attempts to develop a comprehensive theory of the feature that all and ...
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Some mental events are conscious, some are unconscious. What is the difference between the two? This book offers an answer. It attempts to develop a comprehensive theory of the feature that all and only conscious mental events have. According to the theory, conscious mental events differ from unconscious ones in that, whatever else they may represent, they always also represent themselves, and do so in a very specific way. The book fleshed out this idea and argues for it.Less

Subjective Consciousness : A Self-Representational Theory

Uriah Kriegel

Published in print: 2009-08-01

Some mental events are conscious, some are unconscious. What is the difference between the two? This book offers an answer. It attempts to develop a comprehensive theory of the feature that all and only conscious mental events have. According to the theory, conscious mental events differ from unconscious ones in that, whatever else they may represent, they always also represent themselves, and do so in a very specific way. The book fleshed out this idea and argues for it.

This chapter provides a bird's‐eye view of the book's central thesis and the case for it. It distinguishes different aspects of consciousness, and focuses on subjective character as the central ...
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This chapter provides a bird's‐eye view of the book's central thesis and the case for it. It distinguishes different aspects of consciousness, and focuses on subjective character as the central aspects. Then the master argument for a self‐representational account of subjective character is sketched.Less

The Self‐Representational Theory of Consciousness

Uriah Kriegel

Published in print: 2009-08-01

This chapter provides a bird's‐eye view of the book's central thesis and the case for it. It distinguishes different aspects of consciousness, and focuses on subjective character as the central aspects. Then the master argument for a self‐representational account of subjective character is sketched.

This chapter develops and defends an account of subjective character, according to which a mental state has its subjective character in virtue of representing itself in the appropriate way. First ...
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This chapter develops and defends an account of subjective character, according to which a mental state has its subjective character in virtue of representing itself in the appropriate way. First Kriegel argues that a mental state has subjective character because its subject is aware of it, then that the subject is aware of it in virtue of representing it, and finally that the subject represents its conscious state in virtue of being in that very conscious state, which is thus self‐representing.Less

A Self‐Representational Account of Subjective Character

Uriah Kriegel

Published in print: 2009-08-01

This chapter develops and defends an account of subjective character, according to which a mental state has its subjective character in virtue of representing itself in the appropriate way. First Kriegel argues that a mental state has subjective character because its subject is aware of it, then that the subject is aware of it in virtue of representing it, and finally that the subject represents its conscious state in virtue of being in that very conscious state, which is thus self‐representing.

This chapter explores the phenomenological merits and demerits of the self‐representational account of consciousness. It argues that the phenomenology of an ordinary conscious experience involves ...
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This chapter explores the phenomenological merits and demerits of the self‐representational account of consciousness. It argues that the phenomenology of an ordinary conscious experience involves centrally a phenomenal component Kriegel calls “peripheral inner awareness,” and that, if this is so, self‐representationalism follows. In addition, Kriegel argues that self‐representationalism is consistent with the transparency of experience.Less

Self‐Representationalism and the Phenomenology of Consciousness

Uriah Kriegel

Published in print: 2009-08-01

This chapter explores the phenomenological merits and demerits of the self‐representational account of consciousness. It argues that the phenomenology of an ordinary conscious experience involves centrally a phenomenal component Kriegel calls “peripheral inner awareness,” and that, if this is so, self‐representationalism follows. In addition, Kriegel argues that self‐representationalism is consistent with the transparency of experience.

This chapter develops an account of the ontological structure of an ordinary conscious experience. After ruling out a straightforward representational account and a functionalist account, this ...
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This chapter develops an account of the ontological structure of an ordinary conscious experience. After ruling out a straightforward representational account and a functionalist account, this chapter considers a number of options for understanding the structure of consciousness in mereological terms, finally settling on one specific option.Less

Self‐Representationalism and the Ontology of Consciousness

Uriah Kriegel

Published in print: 2009-08-01

This chapter develops an account of the ontological structure of an ordinary conscious experience. After ruling out a straightforward representational account and a functionalist account, this chapter considers a number of options for understanding the structure of consciousness in mereological terms, finally settling on one specific option.

There are two major scientific questions surrounding consciousness: the neural correlate of consciousness and the function of consciousness. This chapter derives specific hypotheses about the neural ...
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There are two major scientific questions surrounding consciousness: the neural correlate of consciousness and the function of consciousness. This chapter derives specific hypotheses about the neural correlate and function of consciousness from the self‐representational theory of consciousness.Less

Self‐Representationalism and the Science of Consciousness

Uriah Kriegel

Published in print: 2009-08-01

There are two major scientific questions surrounding consciousness: the neural correlate of consciousness and the function of consciousness. This chapter derives specific hypotheses about the neural correlate and function of consciousness from the self‐representational theory of consciousness.

This chapter argues that the self‐representational theory accounts for the sense that there is an explanatory gap between physical facts and the facts of consciousness. Kriegel suggests that that ...
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This chapter argues that the self‐representational theory accounts for the sense that there is an explanatory gap between physical facts and the facts of consciousness. Kriegel suggests that that sense is due to the fact that, unlike all other properties, consciousness appears to resist functionalization, even though it does not actually resist functionalization. The appearance of resisting functionalization, in turn, is ultimately due to the self‐representational nature of conscious experiences.Less

Self‐Representationalism and the Reduction of Consciousness

Uriah Kriegel

Published in print: 2009-08-01

This chapter argues that the self‐representational theory accounts for the sense that there is an explanatory gap between physical facts and the facts of consciousness. Kriegel suggests that that sense is due to the fact that, unlike all other properties, consciousness appears to resist functionalization, even though it does not actually resist functionalization. The appearance of resisting functionalization, in turn, is ultimately due to the self‐representational nature of conscious experiences.

This book offers a novel theory of self-consciousness, understood as the ability to think about oneself. The book’s aim is to explain this ability and its development. It argues for a ...
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This book offers a novel theory of self-consciousness, understood as the ability to think about oneself. The book’s aim is to explain this ability and its development. It argues for a non-self-representationalist theory, according to which the self is not part of the representational content of perception and bodily awareness but part of the mode of presentation. It distinguishes between implicitly self-related information and explicit self-representation and proposes a model for the gradual transition from the self-related information that is implicit in the nonconceptual content of perception and bodily experience to the explicit representation of the self in conceptual thought. Based on philosophical considerations and insights from the empirical sciences – in particular developmental psychology – it describes this transition as arising from a complex process of self-other differentiation. On the resulting view, self-consciousness and intersubjectivity develop in parallel.Less

Thinking about Oneself : From Nonconceptual Content to the Concept of a Self

Kristina Musholt

Published in print: 2015-08-28

This book offers a novel theory of self-consciousness, understood as the ability to think about oneself. The book’s aim is to explain this ability and its development. It argues for a non-self-representationalist theory, according to which the self is not part of the representational content of perception and bodily awareness but part of the mode of presentation. It distinguishes between implicitly self-related information and explicit self-representation and proposes a model for the gradual transition from the self-related information that is implicit in the nonconceptual content of perception and bodily experience to the explicit representation of the self in conceptual thought. Based on philosophical considerations and insights from the empirical sciences – in particular developmental psychology – it describes this transition as arising from a complex process of self-other differentiation. On the resulting view, self-consciousness and intersubjectivity develop in parallel.

Consciousness is arguably the most important area within contemporary philosophy of mind and perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the world. Despite an explosion of research from philosophers, ...
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Consciousness is arguably the most important area within contemporary philosophy of mind and perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the world. Despite an explosion of research from philosophers, psychologists, and scientists, attempts to explain consciousness in neurophysiological, or even cognitive, terms are often met with great resistance. This book aims to solve an underlying paradox, namely, how it is possible to hold a number of seemingly inconsistent views, including higher-order thought (HOT) theory, conceptualism, infant and animal consciousness, concept acquisition, and what the book calls the HOT-brain thesis. It defends and further develops a metapsychological reductive representational theory of consciousness and applies it to several importantly related problems. The book proposes a version of the HOT theory of consciousness that the text calls the “wide intrinsicality view” and shows why it is superior to various alternatives, such as self-representationalism and first-order representationalism. HOT theory says that what makes a mental state conscious is that a suitable higher-order thought is directed at that mental state. Thus it argues for an overall philosophical theory of consciousness while applying it to other significant issues not usually addressed in the philosophical literature on consciousness. Most cognitive science and empirical works on such topics as concepts and animal consciousness do not address central philosophical theories of consciousness. The book’s integration of empirical and philosophical concerns will make its argument of interest to both philosophers and nonphilosophers.Less

Rocco J. Gennaro

Published in print: 2011-11-18

Consciousness is arguably the most important area within contemporary philosophy of mind and perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the world. Despite an explosion of research from philosophers, psychologists, and scientists, attempts to explain consciousness in neurophysiological, or even cognitive, terms are often met with great resistance. This book aims to solve an underlying paradox, namely, how it is possible to hold a number of seemingly inconsistent views, including higher-order thought (HOT) theory, conceptualism, infant and animal consciousness, concept acquisition, and what the book calls the HOT-brain thesis. It defends and further develops a metapsychological reductive representational theory of consciousness and applies it to several importantly related problems. The book proposes a version of the HOT theory of consciousness that the text calls the “wide intrinsicality view” and shows why it is superior to various alternatives, such as self-representationalism and first-order representationalism. HOT theory says that what makes a mental state conscious is that a suitable higher-order thought is directed at that mental state. Thus it argues for an overall philosophical theory of consciousness while applying it to other significant issues not usually addressed in the philosophical literature on consciousness. Most cognitive science and empirical works on such topics as concepts and animal consciousness do not address central philosophical theories of consciousness. The book’s integration of empirical and philosophical concerns will make its argument of interest to both philosophers and nonphilosophers.

This is the first and introductory chapter to the volume entitled Disturbed Consciousness: New Essays on Psychopathology and Theories of Consciousness. Rocco J. Gennaro presents an overview of ...
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This is the first and introductory chapter to the volume entitled Disturbed Consciousness: New Essays on Psychopathology and Theories of Consciousness. Rocco J. Gennaro presents an overview of philosophical psychopathology, specific disorders of consciousness, and philosophical theories of consciousness. Some background on key terminology and a summary of the essays to follow is also included. Some of the theories of consciousness described are the higher-order thought theory, self-representationalism, and the global workspace theory. A fairly lengthy list of disorders, along with their definitions, is also provided.Less

Psychopathologies and Theories of Consciousness: An Overview

Rocco J. Gennaro

Published in print: 2015-10-23

This is the first and introductory chapter to the volume entitled Disturbed Consciousness: New Essays on Psychopathology and Theories of Consciousness. Rocco J. Gennaro presents an overview of philosophical psychopathology, specific disorders of consciousness, and philosophical theories of consciousness. Some background on key terminology and a summary of the essays to follow is also included. Some of the theories of consciousness described are the higher-order thought theory, self-representationalism, and the global workspace theory. A fairly lengthy list of disorders, along with their definitions, is also provided.

Alexandre Billon and Uriah Kriegel, the chapter authors, hold that our conscious states often have a distinctive subjective character, or “mine-ness,” in virtue of which they appear to us to be ours. ...
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Alexandre Billon and Uriah Kriegel, the chapter authors, hold that our conscious states often have a distinctive subjective character, or “mine-ness,” in virtue of which they appear to us to be ours. According to what they call “subjectivity theories,” the connection between phenomenal consciousness and subjective character is necessary: all phenomenally conscious states must exhibit this mine-ness. Such theories include higher-order and self-representational theories. Billon and Kriegel consider a prima facie threat to subjectivity theories from cases of patients suffering from thought insertion, delusions of alien control, somatoparaphrenia, and depersonalization who would seem to have conscious thoughts, intentions, or bodily sensations that lack subjective character. They argue that at least some subjectivity theories can accommodate these pathologies.Less

Jaspers’ Dilemma: The Psychopathological Challenge to Subjectivity Theories of Consciousness

Alexandre BillonUriah Kriegel

Published in print: 2015-10-23

Alexandre Billon and Uriah Kriegel, the chapter authors, hold that our conscious states often have a distinctive subjective character, or “mine-ness,” in virtue of which they appear to us to be ours. According to what they call “subjectivity theories,” the connection between phenomenal consciousness and subjective character is necessary: all phenomenally conscious states must exhibit this mine-ness. Such theories include higher-order and self-representational theories. Billon and Kriegel consider a prima facie threat to subjectivity theories from cases of patients suffering from thought insertion, delusions of alien control, somatoparaphrenia, and depersonalization who would seem to have conscious thoughts, intentions, or bodily sensations that lack subjective character. They argue that at least some subjectivity theories can accommodate these pathologies.

Timothy Lane offers a wide ranging commentary where he responds to Billon and Kriegel, Mylopoulos, and Gennaro. He also clarifies and further develops some of his influential previous work in this ...
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Timothy Lane offers a wide ranging commentary where he responds to Billon and Kriegel, Mylopoulos, and Gennaro. He also clarifies and further develops some of his influential previous work in this area. Subjectivity theories of consciousness take self-reference as essential to having conscious experience but they differ with respect to how many levels they posit and to whether self-reference is conscious or not. But all treat self-referencing as a process that transpires at the personal, rather than at the subpersonal, level. Working with conceptual resources afforded by subjectivity theories, several attempts have been made to explain seemingly anomalous cases, especially instances of alien experience. These experiences are distinctive precisely because self-referencing is explicitly denied by the only person able to report them: those who experience them deny that certain actions, mental states, or body parts belong to self. The relevant actions, mental states, or body parts are sometimes attributed to someone or something other than self, and sometimes they are just described as not belonging to self. The cases under discussion here include somatoparaphrenia, schizophrenia, depersonalization, anarchic hand syndrome, and utilization behavior. The theories discussed include Higher-Order Thought and Self-Representational. He argues that each of these attempts at explaining or explaining away the anomalies fails.Less

Self, Belonging, and Conscious Experience: A Critique of Subjectivity Theories of Consciousness

Timothy Lane

Published in print: 2015-10-23

Timothy Lane offers a wide ranging commentary where he responds to Billon and Kriegel, Mylopoulos, and Gennaro. He also clarifies and further develops some of his influential previous work in this area. Subjectivity theories of consciousness take self-reference as essential to having conscious experience but they differ with respect to how many levels they posit and to whether self-reference is conscious or not. But all treat self-referencing as a process that transpires at the personal, rather than at the subpersonal, level. Working with conceptual resources afforded by subjectivity theories, several attempts have been made to explain seemingly anomalous cases, especially instances of alien experience. These experiences are distinctive precisely because self-referencing is explicitly denied by the only person able to report them: those who experience them deny that certain actions, mental states, or body parts belong to self. The relevant actions, mental states, or body parts are sometimes attributed to someone or something other than self, and sometimes they are just described as not belonging to self. The cases under discussion here include somatoparaphrenia, schizophrenia, depersonalization, anarchic hand syndrome, and utilization behavior. The theories discussed include Higher-Order Thought and Self-Representational. He argues that each of these attempts at explaining or explaining away the anomalies fails.

Developing a philosophical account of experiential intentionality requires answering the following question: For any mental state x and property F, what would make it the case that F figures in the ...
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Developing a philosophical account of experiential intentionality requires answering the following question: For any mental state x and property F, what would make it the case that F figures in the experiential-intentional content of x? This chapters discuss tracking accounts of experiential intentionality (Section 2.1), goes on to argue against such accounts (Section 2.2), and then formulates and defends a higher-order tracking theory (Section 2.3), before closing with some objections and replies (Section 2.4). According to the higher-order tracking theory, a property F figures in the experiential-intentional content of a state x just in case x is suitably higher-order tracked to track F. What this exactly means becomes clearer in the course of the chapter. The overall thesis of this chapter is that although the standard tracking theory is rather implausible, the higher-order tracking theory is quite plausible.Less

Uriah Kriegel

Published in print: 2011-08-16

Developing a philosophical account of experiential intentionality requires answering the following question: For any mental state x and property F, what would make it the case that F figures in the experiential-intentional content of x? This chapters discuss tracking accounts of experiential intentionality (Section 2.1), goes on to argue against such accounts (Section 2.2), and then formulates and defends a higher-order tracking theory (Section 2.3), before closing with some objections and replies (Section 2.4). According to the higher-order tracking theory, a property F figures in the experiential-intentional content of a state x just in case x is suitably higher-order tracked to track F. What this exactly means becomes clearer in the course of the chapter. The overall thesis of this chapter is that although the standard tracking theory is rather implausible, the higher-order tracking theory is quite plausible.

This chapter contrasts self-representationalist and non-self-representationalist (or “no-self”) approaches to self-consciousness. It discusses arguments in favour of the view that the self is ...
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This chapter contrasts self-representationalist and non-self-representationalist (or “no-self”) approaches to self-consciousness. It discusses arguments in favour of the view that the self is represented in the nonconceptual content of perception and bodily experience, in particular those presented by Bermúdez. It argues that these are misguided and that, while perception and bodily experience contain implicitly self-related information, the self is not part of the explicit representational content of experience. Finally, the chapter briefly considers the relevance of recent neuroscientific studies dealing with self-consciousness.Less

Self-Representationalist Accounts of Nonconceptual Self-Consciousness

Kristina Musholt

Published in print: 2015-08-28

This chapter contrasts self-representationalist and non-self-representationalist (or “no-self”) approaches to self-consciousness. It discusses arguments in favour of the view that the self is represented in the nonconceptual content of perception and bodily experience, in particular those presented by Bermúdez. It argues that these are misguided and that, while perception and bodily experience contain implicitly self-related information, the self is not part of the explicit representational content of experience. Finally, the chapter briefly considers the relevance of recent neuroscientific studies dealing with self-consciousness.

This chapter discusses in more detail the non-self-representationalist approach, according to which the self is part of the mode rather than the content of perception and bodily experience, and ...
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This chapter discusses in more detail the non-self-representationalist approach, according to which the self is part of the mode rather than the content of perception and bodily experience, and argues for its superiority. It shows how this approach can account for the phenomenon of immunity to error through misidentification and help us to elucidate the notion of prereflective self-consciousness, or the sense of “mineness”. The chapter also discusses how the view defended here relates to similar views put forward by Recanati, Peacocke and O'Brien.Less

Toward a Non-Self-Representationalist Account

Kristina Musholt

Published in print: 2015-08-28

This chapter discusses in more detail the non-self-representationalist approach, according to which the self is part of the mode rather than the content of perception and bodily experience, and argues for its superiority. It shows how this approach can account for the phenomenon of immunity to error through misidentification and help us to elucidate the notion of prereflective self-consciousness, or the sense of “mineness”. The chapter also discusses how the view defended here relates to similar views put forward by Recanati, Peacocke and O'Brien.